“I’m sorry, ma’am, but we don’t accept credit cards,” he replied, handing me back the useless piece of plastic.

I glared at him numbly. He didn’t sound too sorry. In fact, he seemed rather smug about making my life even more miserable than it already was.

“Then what do you accept?” I sighed. “Most people don’t have that much money just lying around.”

“Money?” The dragon’s face became distorted into a somewhat amused expression, which made my frown deepen that much more. Great, it was wonderful that someone was amused with this situation. After all, what wasn’t amusing about having three ninjas bouncing around your living room, a dragon coming to get them out, and then being charged a fee that a normal person wouldn’t make in ten lifetimes, let alone by the time they’re a teenager.

A set of small spectacle glasses appeared in a flash of smoke on the dragon’s nose as a scroll emerged simultaneously in his left front claw. He cleared his throat as he held the scroll out to me. Hesitantly, I took it, knowing that it wasn’t anything I would really want to see. As my fingers closed around the top of the paper, it unfolded itself, unraveling all the way to the sidewalk. In front of me was a long description of what was considered acceptable payment. Apparently, “dollars” was codeword for anything but that and “credit and checks” meant you pay me now or we take you prisoner until you can give us what we want. Who knew?

“Leprechaun gold?” I blurted out in disbelief, reading off the first item on the list. “Unicorn horns, phoenix feathers, Pegasus fur? Where would I find any of this stuff?”

“The nearest Leprechaun, unicorn, phoenix, or Pegasus, I presume,” the dragon replied as he carefully rolled up the scroll and poofed it back to—well, to wherever it came from probably. “But, I—,” I began, but the dragon had vanished before I could reply. Instead, there was a letter at my feet reading simply, You have until midnight tonight.

“Great. Midnight.” I rolled my eyes and slammed the door on my way back into the house. I had midnight to figure out where the heck I was going to find any one of these things, let alone enough to pay off my incredible bill. “I wonder, if I have a heart attack, do I still have to pay?” I asked aloud. “Well, of course ye do, lass,” came a voice from the corner. I gasped and spun around, thinking for a second that I my heart might just stop. There, sitting in the shadows, was a small man dressed in green. His voice had an Irish lilt and his beard hung down to his belly, which was only about a foot anyway. I doubted whether he actually came up to my waist. If he did, it was most likely on his tiptoes.

“Alright, what’s the deal?”

“Pardon me?” was the reply, which annoyed me even more.

“What are you here for? Come to cause me more trouble or annoy me to no end or charge me tremendous fees for a trivial service? Oh, maybe you’ll kill me and put me out of my misery,” I spat sarcastically.

“Well, no need to be rude now, Lass. I only came because I was called, but I can just as easily leave. You know, there are plenty of people that have needs for leprechauns these days.”